Winemaking Philosophy

Our goal at L’Ecole N° 41 is to achieve clean, ripe, stylistically expressive, and aromatic wines that let the individual site characteristics of our vineyards shine through. We believe in well-balanced wines, good acidity, firm but not overpowering tannins, complementary oak extraction, and vibrant, expressive aromas and fruit flavors. To achieve these ends, we have a high-quality dual focus on vineyard management and winemaking practices.

Vineyard Management

We believe in an intense involvement in all aspects of vineyard management, including designated blocks or rows, a direct personal relationship with the on-site vineyard manager or viticulturalist, and tight winery controls on yield and other vineyard practices, for both our own estate-grown and contracted acreage.  We focus on:

• aggressive pruning to limit yield
• drip irrigation to fine-tune canopy growth and vine vigor; we only irrigate as much as is minimally needed by the plant
• shoot thinning for improved spacing and balance
• sustainable biologically-based vineyard practices
• thinning post-bloom and green thinning at veraison for low yields and uniformity of ripeness
• picking on the harvest date selected by the winemaker; cool mornings for the whites and warm mid-day temperatures for the reds

Winemaking Practices

We believe in winemaking practices that assure our wines will be more expressive, more aromatic, and show their individual vineyard site characteristics. With highly focused attention to detail for each vineyard lot, we prefer limited manipulation and handling of the fruit, exemplified by the following:

• gravity-assisted fruit movements, without the use of a must pump
• limited adjustments on acidity, accomplished when necessary at the fermentation stage
• healthy fermentations through the use of small 1.5 – 5 ton fermenters for temperature control, thorough mixing, and oxygen management
• cap managed by punch-downs, as opposed to larger tank pump-overs to avoid skin and seed over-extraction
• slow and gentle racking and frequent monitoring of SO2 levels throughout aging to assure clean and stable wines
• soft pressing to minimize harsh tannins and flavors
• whole cluster pressing on whites for reduced solids and phenolic extraction
• minimally fined and lightly filtered wines
• balanced oak program that adds aromatic complexity, finesse, and fleshiness in the mouth without dominating or overoaking the wines

Our wines contain no animal products and we use no animal products of any kind in the processing/filtration of those wines.